


Mary In Black

by owlpockets



Series: Femslash Big Bang 2016 [4]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/F, Femslash Big Bang Monthly Challenge, June challenge, Medical Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:33:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7349422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlpockets/pseuds/owlpockets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate survives, and dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mary In Black

**Author's Note:**

> For the Femslash Big Bang June challenge - "the first five times they met." The story interprets this theme pretty loosely, but there are technically five meetings in there. I was experimenting with an opening for a larger story and I'm really not happy with it. May by scrapped or revised for the final product.

Kate survived. She was pretty fuzzy on the details of how at this point, but that was to be expected after a severe gunshot wound to the head. All she knew was that her hospital bed was truly uncomfortable and she badly wanted to roll over onto her side to ease the pinch in her back. Actually, Kate wasn’t one hundred percent sure she could move anything with the worrying way her arm didn’t even so much as twitch when she tried to reach for the call button. A swell of panic started rising in her chest and the steady beep of her heart monitor accelerated into a warning call. Abby’s tear-stained face appeared in her fading peripheral vision Kate thought she might be grabbing her hand, but it was numb and she couldn’t focus on it around the pain squeezing the breath out of her chest hard enough to prevent her from vocalizing when she opened her mouth. Nurses swarming around the bed, the mismatched patterns of their shirts making her nauseous. Faces and voices above her blurred together right before Kate blacked out again. 

__

She was running, from something or to something, she couldn’t tell. Why was she on top of a building? The sun was blinding her from seeing where she was going, but she felt she couldn’t stop. 

Unable to see that she had been nearing the edge, she tipped over the side, feeling like her heart was going to burst for the terror, but it was just a break in the sidewalk. She scraped her knees and her face and her hands. The scrape on the side of her head throbbed.

“Are you alright?” A little girl with black hair in pigtails was standing over her, holding back a large and eager puppy. “I’m sorry my dog scared you. She doesn’t usually chase people like that.”

Her mouth worked open and closed, trying to form words, but nothing would come out but a weak whine.

“Oh, maybe you don’t speak English.” The girl’s hands started forming rapid shapes, too fast for her to follow. It didn’t make sense, but it did make her head hurt more, the pain blossoming out from the scrape in waves until her visions hazed to black.

*

She was in church, looking up at a statue of Mary as a young teen girl draped in black. How lifelike it seemed without the unsettling peacefulness of the usual style of statue. The statue’s eyes opened and she winked, wiggling her fingers in a little wave. “Hi,” she whispered. “I wasn’t going to interrupt, but this guy is really boring. Is he always like this?”

At the pulpit an elderly priest with a droning voice was speaking about nothing in particular. She thought she remembered him. “Yes,” she told the statue, “but I’m not allowed to sleep through it.”

The statue giggled, “Too bad. What’s your name?”

“Umm…” Her mind slid away from the word, but it didn’t bother her too much yet. Eventually, she would know. “Who…?”

“Not Mary!” the statue said, unfurling the dark wings that she had previously thought were draped cloth. “I was just standing in today.”

*

Her eyes drifted open, meeting those of the person she had been kissing in the dim light of the movie theater. Smudged dark red lips and green eyes grinned at her. “This is pretty cliché, but it’s cute. I like it,” said the woman next to her.

There was something familiar about the scene, but the movie and the company were novel. She turned to look at the screen for a moment, the name of her companion on the tip of her tongue. On film, she watched a two-lane road move past in the dark, illuminated perhaps by headlights. This is a cheesy horror movie, she decided. A flicker of movement at the edge of the screen caught her attention and she watched a motorcycle speed ahead with fear clutching at her throat. She opened her mouth and turned to ask what was happening, but was met by a finger on her lips. The other woman gave her a significant look that suggested she should be quiet. “Not yet, Kate.”

*

“Good morning, Kate. I’m Abby.” She was in bed with the other woman and they were both wearing cupcake-print pajamas and lying on top of the covers. It felt like junior high but looked like her college dorm room. “That’s Bert,” Abby continued, pointing toward the full-sized adult hippopotamus crushing her roommate’s bed. That should be alarming, but was somehow not.

“Hi Abby, Hi Bert,” Kate said after a moment, forcing her mouth to form the words. Something was wrong with her tongue again, but it was getting better. “I remember you from...before.”

“That’s right, we’re friends. You must have had a lot to drink last night! I think you need to get up now or you’re going to be late for class,” Abby told her with a sage nod. “You’re ready.”

That was true, Kate looked down at herself and saw clothes rather than pajamas. She got up and mounted Bert like a pony, riding out the door while Abby waved from where she was jumping on the bed. “See you soon!”

The hallway was pitch black.  
__

“....caused by some swelling that we expect to go down gradually…but we won’t know the full effects until she’s conscious. This kind of injury is complicated.” The voice was male and sounded detached, if somewhat frustrated.

“Well, can’t you uncomplicate it?” A second male voice, also frustrated. The conversation sounded far away. “Her family is going to be here soon.”

Kate wasn’t sure if opening her eyes was a good idea. It could just be another dream, or was she actually dead this time? She could be in Purgatory, reliving a warped and distorted version of her life. Her head throbbed, but it was curiously dull and didn’t seem to concern her much.

“Kate?” Her name reached her ears as a tremulous question, and this time she could feel the hand squeezing hers with painful clarity. “Are you waking up?”

Kate slit her eyes, mentally bracing for the onslaught of florescence common in hospitals, but someone had the courtesy to switch off the light immediately over her head. Nodding seemed unlikely, so Kate opened her eyes all the way and blinked deliberately.

“Oh my god, can you hear me?” Abby was leaning over her now, eyes big and round and hopeful. “Doc, she’s awake!”

Kate moved her lips around hoping to form words, but it wouldn’t quite come and she settled for blinking again. Abby started smoothing Kate’s hair away from her face unthinkingly. “I was so worried you weren’t going to wake up again,” she said thickly.

With extremely difficulty, Kate forced her dry mouth and tongue to make the shapes she needed to speak, even if what stumbled out wasn’t what she hoped, “You...my dream.”

Abby laughed in hysterical glee, “I knew you’d make it though.”


End file.
